There is a lot of contradictory advice on the net regarding how often you should create new blog posts for your site. The best answer is that there is no right or wrong frequency for blog posting; how often you blog depends on what your readers want and your ability to deliver.

Put Your Readers First

Modern SEO considers the consumer or user as the primary concern. Your time, money and energy are best used when you know who you are creating content for.

If your typical customer or reader is someone who wants to keep updated with cutting edge analysis and responses to industry changes, he or she is likely to appreciate a snappy, daily blog. Customers that are seeking reviews or in-depth analysis, however, might prefer weekly or bi-monthly updates.

The content of your blog posts - analysis, reviews, breaking news or top ten lists, for example - will help you to determine how often your readers might like to read new posts.

Do Some Research

You can use data analysis tools such as Google Analytics to see how your site visitors respond to changes in blog frequency. Check to see if you are gaining new subscriptions, whether existing users are unsubscribing and whether new subscribers are canceling after a couple of weeks.

Remember that you can also go direct. Use your email list or your social networks to ask people how often they want your posts. Creating a poll might be an effective way of doing this. People like being asked what they want rather than being told what they need.

Talking to your visitors in this way may increase engagement with you and your company as well as allowing you to find out how to tailor your site to your ideal visitors.

Analyzing your competition is also a good way to determine how many times to blog per week or month. When looking at the blogs of top websites in similar industries or on similar topics to yours, think about how often they post new content and how much their readers are engaging with those posts.

Adjust Your Blog Frequency Gradually

While you should give how often you post careful consideration, you don't need to get this right straight away. After analysis and self-reflection, you can gradually adjust your publishing schedule to your needs and those of your readers.

If you want to reduce your blog frequency, for example from daily to weekly, try slowing down to three or four times a week before going any further, keeping an eye on analytics to see if this is having a positive or negative effect on your blog traffic and subscribers.

If you're posting once a week and are considering a daily blog, increase to twice a week and then three times first, checking analytics all the while to see if this is having the desired effect on traffic, engagement and lead conversion.

Be Realistic to Maintain Your Schedule and Quality

Put aside your goals for a moment and consider how frequently you can produce new content. How many blog posts per month can you sustain without burning out? Unless you are brimming with energy and ideas on your topic - and sometimes even then - blogging every day can start to feel forced, which is likely to show in your writing and nobody wants that.

Note that people will continue to find your blog posts via searches, social media, and other websites long after the posts are written, so really focus on making them as good as they can be. Good posts continue to generate traffic and can convert traffic into leads over the lifetime of your blog. According to SEO site Hubspot, more than 75% of their blog views and 90% of their leads come from old content.

Keep sight of your monthly traffic and leads goals, but remember that your posts do not disappear. The better quality your posts, the more they will keep working for you., even from your blog archive.

One way to scale your ability to produce content is considering hiring in-house writers or outsourcing to a content writer or writing service you feel comfortable with. This can help you maintain your schedule even if you are exhausted.

Use a Content Calendar

A content strategy and content calendar can help you stay organized. Planning your posts in advance will keep your blog on track, give it direction and prevent you from scrabbling around for ideas to meet your deadlines. With a content calendar, you always know in advance where you are going and what you will be writing.

Having a long-term strategy allows you to pace yourself with content production, which is far preferable to the risk of burning out and disappointing your followers.

Conclusion

Use monitoring, analysis, and engagement with your visitors to determine how often your readers want to read your posts.

The most important thing about your blog posting is that you consistently create quality, remarkable content. No matter how often you update your blog, each post should be written for your ideal visitors, providing them with the information or experience they want.

Sacrificing quality for frequency, therefore, is blog suicide. Increasing traffic is not your end goal. Attracting quality traffic, having them engage with you and converting them into leads are the primary goals.